‘Trust’ can be a word shield to hide hanky-panky

All the Old Men of the Mountain who ventured out Tuesday morning wound up at the Country Café in Schoharie. This scribe wondered why, early on, the original cast of characters picked Tuesday as the day to get away. That was many years ago.

This past Tuesday the breakfast was Feb. 25. (It is about 40 weeks until Christmas; better plan now.)

One OF made a normal statement that many of the OFs make and that statement was: “Believe me.”

This started a conversation on “trust” and “believe.” The OFs came to the conclusion that whenever the words “trust me” or “believe me” are said in a sentence, the warning antennas should pop up like on My Favorite Martian.

“Trust me; would I lie to you?” Whoa, back up, because now is the time to listen carefully. Generally, a fib is hidden there somewhere.

The other expression the OFs mentioned was: “Believe me, this is going to work.”

This should have “Danger, danger, Mr. Robinson” stamped all over it.

One OF said, if it is necessary to ask for trust, then it is a good indicator that the person or persons have not been too trustworthy in the past, or they are using the word “trust” as a word shield to hide some real hanky-panky tucked in there someplace.

“Yeah,” an OF said, “real trust comes when someone says it for you. For instance, ‘You can really trust Joe Blow — he doesn’t say much but, when he does, he knows what he is talking about.’”

Another OF opined, “My frustration is hearing the words, ‘Believe me.’ Too often. I have been told ‘Believe me, that is not going to work,’ and so many times I back off and don’t finish the project I started. Then, later on, I try it my way again and the project works just fine.” The OF continued, “Why did I listen to the OF who told me it wasn’t going to work in the first place?”

“Well,” one OG said, “I guess forewarned is forearmed but I bet we all will make these same statements at one time or another.”

Tough OGs

Most of the wounded OFs have returned to the breakfast, and rather quickly this scribe may say.

The OFs — by virtue of being OFs — are tough or they wouldn’t have made it to being OFs. Even at the ages of this group of senior citizens they still maintain that degree of toughness.

It stands to reason that the OFs discussed their recent bouts with the knife and subsequent body repairs and one OF reported that his blood work showed he was low on iron.

So the OFs bantered on about iron pills and foods high in iron and finally one OF said that low iron was not even mentioned when he was a kid.

To which one OF replied, “When you were a kid, they didn’t even know what blood was.”

Undaunted, the OF continued, “We had a woodstove in the kitchen and there was a fire in that stove even in the summer.”

The OF pointed out his mom cooked in cast-iron pots, and in cast-iron skillets, and the top of the stove was cast iron.

“Ya know,” another OF said, “we did the same thing. I bet you are right, you OG; when we were young, we got real iron right from the pots and pans, and veggies from the garden, not processed. And our own butchered meat and chickens, none of this chemical feed stuff.”

“How about what we hunted and brought home and ate,” another OG said.

“That’s full of lead, you OF, not iron.”

“Oh, yeah,” the OG said.

Beating cabin fever

Some of the OFs say that getting out to the breakfast is a good break from cabin fever. Cabin fever seems like it is a problem this winter with all the cold.

The OFs are beginning to add cold to their litany of complaints, especially this winter. One OF mentioned that he has learned to live with many of his aches and pains, plus not being able to do what he used to do. The OF said this year he has to add the cold weather to not being able to do what he used to do.

This OF liked to cross-country ski and snowshoe, but now with the cold air, both of these activities have had to be curtailed. This OF wants to hang in there until March 20, the vernal equinox, when spring is supposed to start.

That is only a few days away and, to this OF, it looks like it is going to be, “Spring? My foot.”

According to the weather guys, it appears that, in our little section of the world, the thermometer will still be registering in the 20s until late March. These guys can be wrong quite often and we might only make the high teens in that period of time.

One OF said, “They can be wrong the other way, too. We can be in the high 30s.”